Let’s face it. Fraternities have a bad rap on campus, and not ?without cause.
Ten Interfratenity Council fraternities on the IU campus are under disciplinary probation for allegations of hazing or alcohol violations, according to the Division of Student Affairs.
Two additional ones are ?completely suspended.
These pages have already talked at length about the negative consequences of an underground fraternity subculture gone wild, and indeed we have criticized the fraternities on campus for not taking a more active role in stamping it out.
However, we are glad to see that we, as in IU fraternities, are avoiding egregious violations, at least.
The latest horror story involves the brothers of the Zeta-Zeta chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Members purportedly used a system of red and black X’s to identify which girls should be roofied, according to the Huffington Post.
Rohypnol, more formally known as flunitrazepam and more commonly as roofies, is a common date-rape drug because of its short-term amnesia effects on those taking it.
The fraternity brothers allegedly marked the girls they wanted to drug, and the bartender would do so.
This is a despicable example of fraternity behavior at its absolute worst and unfortunately lends credence to the idea that these institutions and their members are nothing more than children with power complexes.
We know the greek system here on campus can be extremely beneficial if used in the right way, and steps are in place to rehabilitate that image. Last week, IU fraternities took pledges to end sexual violence both within the greek system and on campus.
The fraternities released powerful statements about the cause and what they plan on doing to end sexual assault, be it expelling brothers or re-hashing ?intra-fraternity policy.
But a lot needs to be done in order to get away from the pervasive stereotypes and the double-secret probations.
That leaves us with a very hard choice.
With the pervasiveness and ubiquity of parties hosted by the fraternities, going out on a Friday or Saturday night is still very much a caveat emptor proposition.
Despite what we may wish to believe about IU, the unfortunate reality, as with many things, is that the bad apples certainly grab up the majority of headlines.
But simply dismissing incidents like these fails to address the problem of that insidious culture that we have spoken ad nauseum about, nor do we doubt that this will be the last these pages have to say on the issue.
The greek system is not beyond redemption, but the endless choruses calling for change are not done out of malice but genuine concern.
We want all organizations to do their good works contributing to the community, whether it is finding students experience, ?leadership or companionship.
That is the future we want to see and what all of us at IU should strive for, rather than seeking a quick and dirty way to have fun on weekends.
